


Fill my shoes, fill my home

by FrozenBrownie



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Iron Dad, Peter Parker Calls Tony Stark "Dad", Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Press Conference, Proud Dad Tony, The Accords (Civil War Movie), Tony trying to fix the team, mention of Trump being the dick that he is, spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenBrownie/pseuds/FrozenBrownie
Summary: A year and a half after the disaster that was the Civil War, Peter decides to join the Avengers officially, which in turn means to give up his anonymity as Spider Man. Of course Tony has to make a big press conference out of it. Of course Peter has to cock up the whole thing spectacularly. But then, they just had to ask for his opinion on Bucky Barnes and the Accords, hadn't they?The press, accordingly, adores him.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 454





	Fill my shoes, fill my home

**Author's Note:**

> Heya internet, this overwhelmed me as a complete plotbunny when I should have been researching victorian queercoding for a presentation and I just had to write it down, fuck the injured arm. I'm getting better, but my head is so full of ideas, it'll burst before New Years, I swear. So, here's the latest of Tony Stark being proud and slightly concerned of one Peter Parker.   
This isn't beta-read because I don't have a beta at the moment, I'm too productive for most of my friends to beta all the shit I come up with. I actually have no idea who is in charge of the Accords, but that whole thing was a complete disaster anyway (although I love the movie to pieces for the Stucky content and the well-done tension) and I solemnly wished they had brought that story arc to a close, like, at all, instead of fucking off to Thanos straight away, but that's a rant for another time. So, completely ignoring everything that happened after Civil War, here we go. 
> 
> Join me on [tumblr: dreamingbrownie](https://dreamingbrownie.tumblr.com/) to talk about Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts, the MCU, Sherlock Holmes, historic stuff and all kinds of other things. Uni swallowed my soul so sorry for my absence, I'll be fine in a while.

A hushed silence fell over the room as Tony waited for everyone to settle. He hadn’t been exactly nervous in front of the press in a good 15 years tops, but this time, his jittering nerves weren’t shaking for his sake. Like an electromagnetic impulse he felt the proximity of Peter in the shadows, of Pepper and Rhodey behind him, silently promising to hold him up, should he crumble yet again. Whichever deity had laid out Tony’s life before him, clearly it thought too highly of him.   
A sweeping gaze around the room made greetings obsolete, the winter sun was shining through large windows to the right and every last chair was taken.   
“In the past year and a half, mistakes have been made that I will spend the better part of the next decade to fix. That whole disaster with our little bar fight in Germany showed the world at large in no uncertain terms that the Avengers have their limits too, and if we thought ourselves invincible before, clearly we’ve been delusional. Wishful thinking that blew up in our faces so spectacularly, Hollywood couldn’t have done it better, really. To say sorry would indicate that the whole thing is done and over with, which I wish it was, believe me, fighting the Supreme Court isn’t as fun as it used to be.”   
  
A ripple of laughter echoed around the room. Tony shifted his weight to the other leg, the one not currently still healing the evidence of the latest fight against a drug-smuggler ring whose money had gone directly into HYDRA’s battered resources. Crime bosses had become reckless without the Avengers to loom over them as a promise for retaliation. He couldn’t breathe properly, dammit, and the Arc Reactor sat heavy as a stone in his breastbone as he prepared to tone down the sarcasm. This had to be done. Didn’t mean that he wasn’t embarassingly proud of Peter’s decision, neither that he didn’t want to do this, he simply was shit scared for the kid. His kid. These curious, friendly faces in front of him, some of them familiar by now, were sharks, ready to bite at the first scent of blood in the water.   
  
“The only good thing that came of what you guys dubbed the Civil War so cheerfully was my desperate move to even the scales with an addition to my side, which, in hindsight, wasn’t the most responsible thing to do, but there you go.” He more felt than saw Peter straightening not three feet to his right as if bracing to argue, but he wasn’t done yet. “I got to know a young man that awful week, a bright mind from Queens who, ever since, took up Colonel Rhodes' Sisyphus task of trying to keep me right as Rhodey was in recovery from his spine-injury. You might know him as Spider-Man, but to me, he’s the son that my old Dad never thought I would have.” Murmur erupted in the room, nobody was stupid enough yet to spring up and shout at him, but they’d go there in under a minute. Sighing, Tony decided to go off-rails with Pepper’s advice once again because, honestly, prepared speeches were boring anyway, and he needed to convince the public that this was the right thing to do. Anything else was unacceptable.   
  
Taking his trademark sunglasses off, he allowed himself the weakness to pinch the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath once more.   
“Listen, I’m not getting any younger. Alright? I developed a heart condition in my thirties, now an electromagnetic power source bad-ass enough to provide juice for half the Tower is keeping shrapnel from piercing my heart and subsequently pressing on my lungs. I’ve got three healed bullet scars, my back’s a gnarled mess of torture scars, two years ago I was dying from Palladium poisoning and God knows I’ve tried every type of drug and alcohol under the sun before I was 21.” Yup, there erupted the first shouted questions if he was retiring. Tony cut them off with a single hand gesture. “Now, I’m not saying that I’m gonna retire anytime soon, but that day will come, should I even make it that far. I’m the team’s second oldest member – no, Cap is 32 where I’m concerned, seventy years in permafrost don’t count – only topped by half a year by Bruce. Look, what I’m trying to say here is that we need fresh youth to show us older folks just how ancient we’re getting.” Finally, the smile he’d been waiting for came to him easily, and on extending one arm to where Peter was vibrating out of his skin suited up to the neck, his posture returned to its full glory. “Presenting our newest team member: Peter Parker, Queen’s one and only Spider-Man, my adopted son and heir.”  
  
They had trained his entrance into the room for weeks now, but Peter had to go off plan just like Tony, of course. He flipped right to his side with a twist mid-air to show his agility, which effectively erased all doubt if he really was Spider-Man. Not a single journalist was still sitting by the time he came to stand, grinning from ear to ear and so close to Tony that he simply had to put an arm around his slim shoulders. Cameras flashed, blinding them, but they locked eyes in a manner so familiar, it was choking Tony with joy. He let this go on for quite some minutes until he cut them off again, and like a pack of well-trained sledge dogs, they settled down again, restless with energy, to raise their hands impatiently instead of shouting. A quick glance backwards showed him Pepper’s exacerbated but fond headshake, only worsened by the smile he shot her.   
  
Tony picked a woman with a blond ponytail that he recognized fleetingly as not new to his irregular public speeches. “You there, in the middle at the left, uh, Tiffany? Tatjana?” Ignoring him, she smiled sweetly.   
“Peter – Mister Parker?” Peter nodded. “Right. Mister Parker, how old are you, and what are your enhancements?”  
“Uh, hi, I’m 16 and a half, gonna be 17 next August, and before you object or anything, that radioactive spider didn’t wait till I was 18 to bite me so I won’t either. Uhm, I’m sticky, fast, freakishly strong and gravity kind of looks the other way anytime I need to walk on the ceiling. Oh, and somehow I’m one of three people Tony listens to.”   
  
Before the next journalist could ask his question into the quiet laughter, he rattled off anything that would be asked anyway and then some, making Tony groan internally. God, Pepper was going to skin them both alive.   
“Because you’ll ask anyway and you guys are super curious, which is your job, so I get it, but, I’m dying here and I got no idea how Tony does this, so, my story summed up: My parents died in a plane crash when I was very young, I’m not gonna tell you which school I attend cause I want you guys to leave my friends the hell alone but I’m hoping for MIT to take me in after I finally graduate. I didn’t reveal my identity before because I like having privacy, the shit you pull on Tony sometimes is just horrible and frankly, can be fucking dangerous for missions, with us battling terrorists and aliens every other Tuesday. So, if you could refrain from following me to school and not try to get in my way when I’m swinging around Queens, that’d be nice, thank you very much.” Finally, Peter exhaled and sagged into Tony’s side. His hands were shaking, but he smiled at him brilliantly when Tony hugged him tighter.   
  
For a few stunned seconds, the room was entirely silent before it all blew up into chaos once again. Maybe they should have pulled a stop right then and there, but there were still questions to answer, important ones, and Tony hated every minute of it.   
“Mister Parker, what do you think of the Sokovia Accords? You were involved in the fight, after all.”  
Right to the difficult questions, then. For a split-second, Peter looked up at him questioningly, hesitating, and Tony was a heartbeat away from intervening, but the kid frowned and shook his head minutely.   
“Okay, here’s the tea: I was star-struck, dumb and didn’t ask any questions out of excitement. Man, I stole Captain America’s shield while he was defending his – uh – his boyfriend, I guess – no, not going there, ask him yourselves, he’s got Twitter and he’s not being subtle at all so I’m not outing him here – Whatever, so for me the whole thing was a more serious training, I just thought they had disagreed on some important shit and would pull themselves together come next week. Yes, well, I was wrong. Sorry, Dad, but not to ask more questions was stupid as fuck of me.”  
“Language, kid,” Tony murmured while the cold guilt churned in his stomach, but he flicked the whole thing off anyway. “No offense taken, my fault, go on if you want to.”   
  
“Right. So, I agree with both positions, kind of, ‘cause collateral damage is awful, anywhere the Avengers go, danger follows, and that’s coming from me who even was at the Stark Expo that got busted by that Russian guy back when I was eleven-“  
“You _what_?!” Tony squeaked while Pepper was having an aneurysm from providing damage control behind them, still Peter wasn’t deterred, reddening slightly.   
“Hey, you saved my life that day! Me and hundreds of other people, which is amazing, and every official government would have taken too long to give permission to, you know, save New York yet again. Somebody’s gotta pay for all the damage and the injuries of civilians sustained, I get that, but that was under a different President. And I think, personally, sorry Captain, that what Steve was trying to get across other than that Sergeant Barnes was a goddamn Prisoner of War, brainwashed and drugged up to his eyeballs without consent and therefore not responsible for the things he was made to do – where was I going with this? Yeah, uh, anyway, I stan Bucky Barnes, take it or leave it.”  
  
“Kid-“ Tony tried to interrupt only half amused, but Peter soldiered on still.   
“No, I got this, bear with me here.” He took a deep breath, looking at the crowd directly instead of focusing the wall behind them. “After the election a year ago, we had seven students in our class crying the whole day, on and off, because they were scared out of their minds for their lives and for their families. They still are, understandably, because our new administration is racist as fuck – and a few other things I won’t blurt out now cause I’d like to not go to prison for this. Anyway, under such a President, and I think Captain Rogers feared exactly this scenario, the Avengers who signed the accords can be sent into – I don’t know, Iraq or Mexico, on order of the Senate, to fight whomever our new administration declares this week’s boogeyman. Or worse, ordered to stand down from something they could help with. And man, that sucks massively. It’s just not right.”  
  
His hands dropped back to his sides, done with the wild gestures. Internally, Tony was howling with laughter at the surprised expression of the man who had asked for his opinion in the first place. Peter and him disagreed on numerous points of the Accords, but that was okay, Tony didn’t pick his friends for precise political opinions. Obviously.   
He selected another woman of some bigger paper that was remotely professional while already working on a statement himself, as that demand would come via social media within the hour of publication, no doubt.   
  
“Why are you joining the Avengers, then?” Ah. That had been inevitable. Peter tensed, standing up straighter, squaring his shoulders under Tony’s arm. They had rehearsed this answer.   
“Because they need me, and because I can help. I still will be Queen’s friendly neighborhood spider, don’t worry, but things have just been going downhill since Ultron. We need more manpower to fight the battles others can’t, and while I’ll sooner bench Tony on a beach in Malibu than let him go down before he’s at least seventy-“  
“That mansion was bombed to the bottom of the ocean, Pete-“  
“As if you couldn’t have another _safer_ one built within a week!”   
“Fair,” he relented, which made the whole room chuckle again. They were enraptured with the two of them, he could tell. Mission accomplished. Peter huffed and smiled, a quick nod finalizing his answer.   
“Yeah, anyway, I want to help, and I can. I’ll sign the new accords once they’re done and revised. And somebody has to show the Avengers Star Wars, right?”   
  
Somehow, this was the perfect finishing line for a marathon which had drained the kid so thoroughly that his shoulders sagged as soon as they were out the door, Pepper hot on their heels. Rhodey cleaned up after them, making sure everyone was escorted out and no one remained behind; people usually relented quicker staring at a military man decked in honors. Peter was breathing heavily and he sunk onto the first chair he was offered, groaning as if in agony. Thank god for competent staff, Tony thought while sinking onto his knees in front of him.   
“Hey, kid, you okay? Don’t frighten me here, you need something to throw up into?”  
“No, no, I’m fine, just-“ Peter sighed, slouching down the chair like a molten puddle of goo. “Oh god, I fucked this up so badly, didn’t I? I sweared and rambled and I insulted the goddamn president. I mean, Trump’s an asshole, but-“  
  
“Peter!” Pepper chided somewhere above them, but Tony tsked and gently laid a hand on Peter’s neck to stroke through his chestnut hair. Puppy. He was the puppy of the team now, and arguably the most loud-mouthed of all of them.   
“Nah, we’ll give him an out today, let’s pretend he isn’t a teenager who swears at school again tomorrow. You did good, kid.” Looking up, he frowned miserably, hiding behind his hands.   
“Do you really think so? Man, and I thought you were bad at following text on cards.”  
“He is.”  
“No, I’m not,” Tony argued while checking the time on his watch, “I chose not to follow the cards because I did so for years and it was boring. My first press conference was a complete disaster, the papers hated me and my uncle Obediah told me that I was unworthy of my father’s company.” After clapping Peter’s knees, he got up again – ouch, not getting any younger indeed – and offered him a hand to do the same. “I’m proud of you. The press loves you already, even though you told them to fuck off. They even forgot to ask for your plans for Stark Industries over your little speech back there, which is more than I’d hoped for, to be honest.” Peter winced.   
“Yeah, sorry about that.”   
  
Together they walked out of the backstage and into the shining lobby where, by now, all traces of the herd of journalists were gone already. Just before Rhodey met them there, Tony shrugged, one hand at Peter’s neck while Pepper was typing away furiously on her phone to his left. Her heels clicked on the sleek floor, and while she stood out in the sea of men and women in suits as she was wearing blinding white, most employees largely ignored the small family.   
Ah, Tony realized, that was why he was so nervous today. He had all of his favorite people in one place for once, which made them an easy target. Well, anyone stupid enough to wish them harm would have to go through him first.   
  
“Forget about offending me, kid, I get where you’re coming from and as it stands, I agree with most of your points, if not all. I highly doubt that Cap saw Trump winning beforehand, none of us did, but the possibility of exploit was always there and I was buried too deep in my guilt complex to see it. Whatever, he’s coming home next year with Barnes, Maximoff and Wilson are gonna be with us for Christmas, Clint is with his family and who knows where Natasha hides anyway. We’ll have the whole party here again in no time.”  
“As soon as you’ve hashed it out with the Supreme Court,” Rhodey added, having heard the last sentence. He looked satisfied, if a bit worried as usual when around Tony.   
“They’ll bend over backwards when the next catastrophe hits on American soil and we’re woefully short on personnel. Hey, anyone up for pizza? I’m craving pizza Hawaii.”   
  
As horrified as Peter appeared, one could think Tony had asked for squirrel well done.   
“You are an actual hermit, you know that? What would Doctor Banner say?”  
“Brucie’s Italian origin isn’t helping with his trip to space and we’re still working on getting him back, so there you go, he can give me the stink eye from Alpha Centauri all he wants. So, two salami and a Quadro Stagioni for you, a Hawaii for me and – for you, Rhodes?”  
“Eh, order me a vegetarian or whatever, my Mom stuffed me with Turkey on the holiday weekend already. I’ll just check in with Happy and meet you guys up on the common floor. Pepper?”  
“With salmon, please, and I’ll join you as soon as I have convinced the press to turn a blind eye on what Peter said about the current President, may he be controversial as he is.”   
“Oh dear,” Tony commented at her stressed tone, “I’m sure that I’ve insulted Ex-President Ellis worse, Peter was nice. Take a break, honey. We’ll meet you upstairs.” She kissed him on the cheek and rolled her eyes, which was as good as an admittance that he was right.   
  
People parted for them like the sea as he and Peter walked towards the elevators. A warm, bristled feeling settled into his heart that may have been pride, or joy, or relief, or all three at once. And Peter looked at him smiling, tired but relieved, too, already rattling off about an idea how to integrate the Nano technology of the Iron Man suit into his Iron Spider suit.  
Yeah. This would do nicely.


End file.
